Category Archives: You’re Going to Die

With only one entry in our "You're Going To Die" series, I think we will have to call a halt to the endeavor. I really enjoyed it, I just wish it had picked up more momentum and participation. Oh well. Thanks to the handful of folks who were chiming in and / or following along.

Feel free to use this space to discuss why you think it didn't work, if we should keep doing something like it, or if we should go back to a generic "CYOA" story. Or if we should do nothing at all.

Our adventure with human-eating roaches and the military encampment around our office continues this week. Our choices were to admit to the examining physician that we ate some Jack's Link Human Jerky or to lie our pants off. The advancement of the plot goes to borntobealoser. Had we chosen to lie, lie, lie to save our lives, this would have happend:

There’s no way you’re going to tell them about the Jack’s Links, they’ll arrest you and throw you back to the roaches, or worse, they’ll think you’re weird. “No sir, no banana, and no meat. I’m actually a vegetarian with a deep phobia of bananas.”

The small balding man looks back at his scanner, then gives you a concerned look, before deciding that it’s not worth the trouble to follow up on whatever his scanner detected. “Very well, move along.”

Phew, that was close! Now to speak to Angeline, maybe an insect apocalypse might be enough to convince her to go out with you. “Hey, Tankerbell! How’s about we ditch this place and go for a dri- Oof!” A sharp jab to the stomach with the butt of her gun is enough to knock the wind out of you and stop your attempt to hit on her in its tracks.

Sheesh, wasn’t she paying attention? You told them you hadn’t eaten the Jacks Links, how long is this going to go on for? “Nothing’s wrong with my stomach, the bald guy agreed, remember?” Judging by the fear in her face, you don’t think she does.

“That doesn’t explain why it’s rippling…” You look down. Your stomach is indeed rippling. Quite vigorously, in fact. Perhaps you should’ve told them about the Jack’s Links, after all. There’s no time to ponder this, though, as hundreds of tiny insects rip through your stomach, and an entire squad of soldiers starts to pump lead into you. It looks like your adventure, and your life, ends here.

Luckily we were smart enough to be honest and truthful, possibly for the first time in our lives. Thus:

You might as well tell them, he’s probably only asking because the scanner says something freaky is going on in your stomach, and you don’t want to die of infection, you’ll miss out on all the action, including a chance to hit on Miss Tankerbell. Besides, they probably wouldn’t believe you anyway.

“Why, yes I have. One suspicious banana, and a whole bag of human jerky. That isn’t a problem, is it?”

The man looks at you in horror. “You bet it’s a problem!” He turns to the other white coats and yells “We’re going to have to pump his stomach, NOW!”.

In a matter of seconds everybody else in the tent has launched themself on top of you, pinning your puny body to the ground. After successfully restraining you with minimal effort, they set you down on a table, and the small balding man pulls out a terrifying piece of apparatus from a drawer. You try to scream out and suggest that this might not be all that necessary, but it just provides the bald guy with an opportunity to shove the pump into your mouth. With a flick of the switch, the contents of your stomach is sucked back up the way it entered. From the corner of your eye you can see it all: the banana with the lump, check. Several pieces of dried human, check. A small army of baby roaches, che- wait, what?! The critters sprint off in every direction, attempting to make a bid for freedom, but Angeline and her squad are easily able to pick off every last one with their machine guns.

After being released from your restraints, you shriek “What the hell just happened? I don’t remember eating any bugs recently!”.

“Relax, Pencil Pusher, you’re not the only one that this has happened to, we’ve wasted half of our supply of ammunition on those things. You’re fine, for now.” says Angeline, matter-of-factly. “Now report to the civilian lodgings, or follow me to Captain Hook. You were the last one to leave that building, we could use any information you may have.”

Awesome! You managed to get away with eating human unpunished, and now Miss “Tankerbell” Angeline has just invited you to stick around. Your charm is rubbing off, after all.

Do you:
A: Head off with Tankerbell to find Captain Hook, OR
B: Report to the civilian lodgings

So have at it, folks! If you have an idea for what ought to happen in either situation, feel free to post even if it's not a fully finished scenario. Maybe someone else will get inspired by your concept!

The main challenge is for you to write up the results of both choices, one leading to death in classic CYOA style, the other to a furthering of the adventure, presenting us with two new choices at the end. As an added bonus, at least one of the write-ups must include the word "weasel", because weasel is a fund word to say.

When last we left our intrepid Office Adventurer, we were locked in a storage closet with the boss' bratty son. Our options were to a) stay in the room and hope for the best or b) go exploring to try and find our way out. I enjoyed all four of the suggested outcomes (thanks to Renxin, Herr D, Gero, and borntobealoser!), but I'm going to go with Gero's as our official response. Here's what happens as a result of both choices:

If you’re just tuning in, our goal is to write our own Choose Your Own Adventure where every choice is twofold, with one leading to further adventure and the other to a gruesome death. Here were our choices from last week:

Oh, you’re going to tell daddy over my dead body! You spring into action, grabbing a handful of those cheap office pens, just in case you need to throw stuff at him. You begin to notice your age as you pant towards the brat, but you’ll be damned if that stops you! You whip a pen at him, missing completely (unless you were actually aiming at Sue with the lazy eye from accounting, but you know you weren’t).

He looks back to see if that was you, makes an obscene gesture, and picks up the pace. If you don’t do something soon, you’ll have to listen to your boss lecture you for 15 minutes about conducting yourself in the office! 15 friggin minutes!!! You take every pen in hand, and throw them with all your might. Nailed him!

He turns around again, probably to make some stupid remark, when he runs right past his dad’s office, and down a stairwell. You hear him make a large amount of shrieks and shrills, as any annoying child is prone to do when they’re making a big deal out of some broken bones. Oh wait, this is bad! Now he’s going to tell his dad you made him fall! Unless he broke his mouth. Can you break a mouth? You’re not sure, but you bet that kid just found out.

Do you:
A – Check on the poor boy with the possibly broken mouth?
B – Beat him to his dad, and make up a story about him screwing around?

Such unchecked violence! At this rate we could be on cable. We had some great entries, seriously well written. I loved the Zombie approach from borntobealoser, but since we did such an adventure with "Zombocalypse Now", I thought we should try something different. Thus, we're going with logosgal's!

If you’re just tuning in, our goal is to write our own Choose Your Own Adventure where every choice is twofold, with one leading to further adventure and the other to a gruesome death. Last week featured:

A. Continue honing your paper ball throwing skills.

As another wadded up paper ball bounces off the rim of the waste paper basket, you get the distinct feeling that someone is watching you. You shrug it off, however, and continue to crumple up your “important” meeting notes and show-off your skills to whomever is watching. Hopefully, it’s Angeline.

This time, the ball goes in! “Yes!” You shout while pumping your fist into the air, “200 points.”

“That’s the first one I’ve seen you sink,” Jimmy, the boss’s kid says.

Startled, you try to compose yourself. In your excitement, you had forgotten someone had been watching you. “Well,” you reply snarkily, “Maybe each basket is worth 200 points.”

“I’m telling my dad,” he retorts. Then runs off to your boss’s office.

Oh crap! This could ruin your day…well, more than your day. What if you got fired? What if you got fired! There’s always unemployment…

Do you…
A. Chase after Jimmy
or
B. Let Jimmy report you to his father?

We had five really fun entries, many thanks to Myro, Shookman, Gero, HerrD, and Renxin. I decided to go with The Shookman's take, partly because I think it lends itself well to the supernatural twist I'm asking for. First, here's how we would have died:

B – Let Jimmy report you to his father: So you were throwing some mildly important documents at a trash can to pass the time. Big deal, right? Screw that little devil spawn, you’re hungry again, and you would rather chase a burger with a soda than chase a brat with an attitude.

You sneak away to the kitchen, ready to eat something that will finally satisfy. You pop open the fridge. Sweet! Left over Chinese food! The note says, “PAUL’S. DO NOT EAT.” Ppphhhh, as if that ever stopped you any other time. Paul has a good taste in food, and if you don’t eat it, how are you going to make sure it doesn’t go to waste?

Following your half-assed logic, you start to chow down. You see Paul in the distance, who is clearly making his way towards you. Oh wow. He looks pissed. Well, no point in stopping now, right? You begin to shovel the food down as fast as possible, when you suddenly realize you’ve stopped breathing, which is odd, because Paul isn’t close enough to choke you yet. Panic sets in as you realize it’s the food, and the only person in the office certified to do CPR is… Paul.

He walks away, muttering how you deserve it, as you choke to death, alone, in the kitchen of the office. Just like your mom always said you would.

Your office adventure ends here.

Bummer! But goodness knows, I've wanted exactly that fate to befall a coworker before who helped himself to my lunch. And now, here's the continuation of our adventure:

A – Chase after Jimmy: Oh, you’re going to tell daddy over my dead body! You spring into action, grabbing a handful of those cheap office pens, just in case you need to throw stuff at him. You begin to notice your age as you pant towards the brat, but you’ll be damned if that stops you! You whip a pen at him, missing completely (unless you were actually aiming at Sue with the lazy eye from accounting, but you know you weren’t).

He looks back to see if that was you, makes an obscene gesture, and picks up the pace. If you don’t do something soon, you’ll have to listen to your boss lecture you for 15 minutes about conducting yourself in the office! 15 friggin minutes!!! You take every pen in hand, and throw them with all your might. Nailed him!

He turns around again, probably to make some stupid remark, when he runs right past his dad’s office, and down a stairwell. You hear him make a large amount of shrieks and shrills, as any annoying child is prone to do when they’re making a big deal out of some broken bones. Oh wait, this is bad! Now he’s going to tell his dad you made him fall! Unless he broke his mouth. Can you break a mouth? You’re not sure, but you bet that kid just found out.

Do you:
A – Check on the poor boy with the possibly broken mouth?
B – Beat him to his dad, and make up a story about him screwing around?

Now it’s your turn, but with a twist: I want something "fantastical" to happen this week. You can introduce magic or spaceships or zombies or talking rabbits, but something not of this normal reality should appear in both your choices. With that in mind, write up the results of Choice A (“Check on the poor boy with the possibly broken mouth”) and Choice B (“Beat him to his dad, and make up a story about him screwing around?”), with one ending in death and the other presenting us with two options from which to choose.

If you're just tuning in, our goal is to write our own Choose Your Own Adventure where every choice is twofold, with one leading to further adventure and the other to a gruesome death. Last week featured:

B: Shrug and continue eating:

Meh. Whoever this guy was, he didn’t have a great taste in tattoos, but he did have a GREAT TASTE. You finish the bag off, and lick you fingers. You scrumple up the Jack’s Links packet into a ball, and proceed to throw it into the waste paper bin on the other side of the office. It runs along the ridge of the paper bin twice before finally falling in. Hey, this is great! You think you’ve just invented the latest sport: waste paper golf. You’re surprised nobody has ever done this before. God, you’re an absolute genius. You’re about to scrumple all of your important legal documents into balls to continue your newfound sport, when Angeline walks into the room and sits in her cubicle. You know Angeline is like, really into you, because she was totally checking you out at the last Christmas shindig. Well, either you, or the tall, handsome guy standing next to you. Nah, it was definitely you.

You’re now conflicted. Do you:

A: Continue honing your paper ball throwing skills.

OR

B: Walk over to Angeline, and give her your best pick up line.

All five entries were very fun, and I encourage you to go take a look when you get the chance. But the official continuance comes to us by BenK22! But first, here's what would have happened had we gone with trying to give Angeline a pick up line:

This is one of my favorite things we have ever done on this blog. I love these stories and the tales of death in each and every option.

If you're just tuning in, our goal is to write our own Choose Your Own Adventure where every choice is twofold, with one leading to further adventure and the other to a gruesome death. Last week featured:

It’s another boring day at your stupid office. You spent most of the morning catching up on all the Internet you missed while sleeping and now you’re behind. Your stomach is growling because the banana you bought had a weird brown lump on it. You know you should get back to work, but you also know that you’re hungry and don’t care about your job at all.What do you do?

SEARCH FOR FOOD in the drawer that you haven’t used since you started here 2 years ago.

CHECK EMAIL to see if your boss sent any super-long emails you can read to pass the time.

We chose:

SEARCH FOR FOOD in the drawer that you haven’t used since you started here 2 years ago.
You open your desk drawer and, underneath a stack of sexual harassment zero-toleration handbooks and porn magazines, find a bag of beef jerky. The brand name is “Jack’s Links” …which doesn’t sound quite right, buy hey, beggars can’t be choosers and you need something to lay down on top of that scary-looking banana you ate earlier. You rip open the bag and dig in. Hey, this stuff isn’t half bad! Kind of an odd color for beef jerky, but it’s really quite delicious. You get through about two thirds of the bag when you pull out a piece that’s got a tattoo of a heart and anchor on it.

Do you:

A. Scream and run away in horror, or
B. Shrug and continue eating.

All of the entries were great, you should do yourself a favor and read through them if you haven't already. But I'm going with borntobealoser's suggestion, so here's what would happen with each of the choices:

A: Scream and run away in horror:

“OH LAWD!” you scream, as your body bolts upright, and pieces of Jack’s Links fly in every direction. Before anybody can even ask you what’s wrong, you’re running around like a headless chicken. Just ahead of you is Jimmy, the boss’ annoying little brat. In your panic you randomly remember that it’s “bring your son to work day” here at the office. You decide that this piece of information isn’t very useful to you at a time like this, and continue your mad dash. Unfortunately, nobody told Jimmy that it wasn’t “bring your skateboard to work day”, and you end up putting your foot onto Jimmy’s discarded skateboard. Down the flight of stairs you fly, grinding down the hand railing. If you didn’t still have the taste of human in your mouth, this would be pretty cool. You end up in the main entrance to the building, and due to lack of control, you burst through the front doors. Out on the street, construction workers are laying down cement. “Huh, roadworks. I wish the boss had warned me, I’ve just had my car detailed.” you think to yourself as you continue speeding on Jimmy’s skateboard. Unable to stop, you speed past the barriers the workers have erected, and skid into the quick drying cement, and instantly become encased in rock. From the floor above, you can see that Jimmy has been filming the whole thing. It gets hard to breath, and in your dying breath, you sincerely hope he uploads the footage to Youtube. Your life, and adventure, end here.

B: Shrug and continue eating:

Meh. Whoever this guy was, he didn’t have a great taste in tattoos, but he did have a GREAT TASTE. You finish the bag off, and lick you fingers. You scrumple up the Jack’s Links packet into a ball, and proceed to throw it into the waste paper bin on the other side of the office. It runs along the ridge of the paper bin twice before finally falling in. Hey, this is great! You think you’ve just invented the latest sport: waste paper golf. You’re surprised nobody has ever done this before. God, you’re an absolute genius. You’re about to scrumple all of your important legal documents into balls to continue your newfound sport, when Angeline walks into the room and sits in her cubicle. You know Angeline is like, really into you, because she was totally checking you out at the last Christmas shindig. Well, either you, or the tall, handsome guy standing next to you. Nah, it was definitely you.

You’re now conflicted. Do you:

A: Continue honing your paper ball throwing skills.

OR

B: Walk over to Angeline, and give her your best pick up line.

Now it's your turn! Write up the results of Choice A (paper ball throwing skills) and Choice B (try your pickup line on Angeline), with one ending in death and the other presenting us with two options from which to choose. I can't wait to see what you come up with!

It’s another boring day at your stupid office. You spent most of the morning catching up on all the Internet you missed while sleeping and now you’re behind. Your stomach is growling because the banana you bought had a weird brown lump on it. You know you should get back to work, but you also know that you’re hungry and don’t care about your job at all.What do you do?

SEARCH FOR FOOD in the drawer that you haven’t used since you started here 2 years ago.

CHECK EMAIL to see if your boss sent any super-long emails you can read to pass the time.

You were then challenged to come up with the results of each of those two actions. One had to end in death, and the other in something that would continue the adventure with two additional choices. All of the entries were fantastic, truly. I had a super hard time deciding which to go with, but ultimately I thought Imp had the best combination of writing, the "CYOA Spirit", humor, and possibility for continuing adventure. So here's what happened:

CHECK EMAIL to see if your boss sent any super-long emails you can read to pass the time.
At the top of your email list is the following missive: “Due to repaving of the street bordering the company parking lot, all employees must make alternative parking arrangements this week. Park in the lot at your own risk – damages to vehicles may occur.” Holy crap! You just got your car detailed last weekend! You rush out to the parking lot and see a bunch of guys with jackhammers tearing up the street. Pebbles and rocks are flying all over the place, including into the parking lot. And your car will be right in the line of fire in seconds! You begin to run to your vehicle and are promptly run over and killed instantly by your boss, who’s moving her own car. Your office adventure is, sadly, over.

SEARCH FOR FOOD in the drawer that you haven’t used since you started here 2 years ago.
You open your desk drawer and, underneath a stack of sexual harassment zero-toleration handbooks and porn magazines, find a bag of beef jerky. The brand name is “Jack’s Links” …which doesn’t sound quite right, buy hey, beggars can’t be choosers and you need something to lay down on top of that scary-looking banana you ate earlier. You rip open the bag and dig in. Hey, this stuff isn’t half bad! Kind of an odd color for beef jerky, but it’s really quite delicious. You get through about two thirds of the bag when you pull out a piece that’s got a tattoo of a heart and anchor on it.

Do you:

A. Scream and run away in horror, or
B. Shrug and continue eating.

So here's how it works, folks. In the comments below, write up each of the possible results. One (your choice) should end in death, while the other should produce a continuation with two possible choices at the end of it.